Elizabeth Dias

The decision rolled back a 2015 rule that had ripped congregations apart by declaring that church members in same-sex marriages were apostates and subject to excommunication, and that children of same-sex couples were banned from rituals like baptisms and baby-naming ceremonies.

The change signals an attempt to heal the rift and represents a broader effort by the church’s newest president to bring the church closer to the American mainstream.

The decision, delivered by President Dallin H. Oaks, stops short of ending the church’s teaching that acting on same-sex attraction is sinful. It comes as the church, which has long been known as the Mormon Church, prepares for its general conference for all members this coming weekend.

“While we cannot change the Lord’s doctrine, we want our members and our policies to be considerate of those struggling with the challenges of mortality,” the First Presidency, the church’s highest governing body, said in a statement Thursday. “We want to reduce the hate and contention so common today.

“While we still consider such a marriage to be a serious transgression, it will not be treated as apostasy for purposes of Church discipline,” the statement said. “Instead, the immoral conduct in heterosexual or homosexual relationships will be treated in the same way.”

The policy adopted in 2015 allowed children of same-sex couples to join the church only after they reached the age of 18 and moved out of their parents’ homes. They also had to disavow same-sex relationships and receive approval from the church’s leadership.

The new policy rolls back those restrictions, and requires that same-sex parents give permission for their children to be baptized and acknowledge the commitments the child is making to the church.

Emotions among Latter-day Saints across the country were raw as the news spread Thursday. In Charlottesville, Virginia, Meredith Marshall Nelson was at her son’s violin lesson when her brother texted her. She began to cry in relief, and recalled how the weekend that the 2015 policy was announced was the first time in her life that she did not want to go to church.

“It felt so incongruous with the teachings of Jesus,” said Marshall Nelson, 33, who is the editor of the Mormon Women Project, a storytelling outlet. “He said, ‘Let the children come unto me, and forbid them not.’”

In Rexburg, Idaho, Kristine Anderson said she and her friends were overwhelmed. “Everyone’s freaking out,” she said. “There is anger, frustration, happiness, all of it mixed.”

“Everything just broke” in 2015, said Anderson, who has three young children. “I couldn’t get out of bed for three days. I cried and cried. I couldn’t even look at the church building, it hurt so much.”

Even though the policy is now history, she remains frustrated. “There are so many people who disagreed with the policy the whole time, and we’ve been looked at as apostates and heretics, because you are not supposed to disagree with the prophet,” she said.

The decision came nearly eight months after the church’s newest president, Russell M. Nelson said that he had received a revelation that the church should no longer be referred to as Mormon, but by its full name. Many observers saw it as a sign that the church aimed to align itself with mainstream American Christianity.

“On the one hand, the church is trying to figure out how to keep its younger members and how to be a large church in the 21st century,” Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, an assistant professor of history at Montana State University, said of this moment. “But in other ways, it is also trying to retain its distinct identity.”

Churches across the Christian tradition have long wrestled with their own policies about the religious rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and the tension has grown in recent months. The United Methodist Church voted in February to strengthen its ban against gay and lesbian clergy and same-sex marriage, a decision poised to split the denomination. Roman Catholics have debated the role of homosexuality in the clergy sexual abuse scandal, ostracizing gay priests.

In Springville, Utah, Alma Loveland stopped going to her Latter-day Saints church around the time that the 2015 policy was announced. “In the ex-Mormon world, it is always a mix of happy and angry any time the church does anything that is positive,” she said. “It is always mixed with, OK, but you caused this problem in the first place.”

It is too early to tell whether or not this reversal may be enough to draw back those to the church who have left the faith altogether. But it is another sign that the church under the leadership of Nelson, who assumed the role last year, is reconsidering its relationship with the broader American culture.

While LGBT advocacy groups, like the Human Rights Campaign, cautiously welcomed the news, they also noted that it was only a first step. Lisa Dame, vice president of Mama Dragons, a group started by Mormon mothers with LGBT children, said that it “still does not go far enough to really protect the mental health of LGBT people, because it sends a message that it is still not OK.”

Affirmation, a group that describes itself as for LGBT Mormons, families and friends, issued a statement calling attention to “unresolved and hurtful issues surrounding transgender church members.” The church teaches that gender and marriage are eternal, and that men and women are married to each other in heaven.

“For people who are queer, it is not quite clear how they could fit into that eternal heavenly family,” Hendrix-Komoto said.

Latter-day Saints leaders have previously supported some gay rights issues, like ending housing and employment discrimination for LGBT people in Utah, but they remain unmoved about same-sex marriage. The church, and some of its wealthy donors and volunteers, notably pushed California to pass its Proposition 8 ballot initiative in 2008, which at the time made same-sex marriage illegal in the state.

Criticism from conservative members of the church was fairly muted Thursday. But the reversal most likely had widespread support, said Patrick Mason, chairman of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University, who noted that he had never seen a church policy more openly questioned than the 2015 baptism ban.

“They were hearing not just from left, but from the center and the right,” Mason said of church leaders. “These were grandparents and parents saying this policy doesn’t do anything for us.”

Still, for some the decision remains too little, too late. In Millcreek, Utah, all Kathy Carlston could think of when she heard the news was of her late wife, Berta Marquez, who died by suicide last year. The church’s exclusionary policy toward same-sex relationships had played a role her wife’s spiritual and mental state and in her death, Carlston said in an interview. The reversal, she said, was just a step in honoring her wife’s memory.

“Moving forward without apologizing is just gaslighting,” she said of the announcement. “They need to reach out and acknowledge the harm they have caused.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/us/mormon-church-lgbt-parents-children-baptized.html" id="1823aead-d1a0-3c40-a65b-b575f7ae673b">The New York Times</a>.

Mormon Church Rescinds Policy That Stung Same-Sex Families

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Thursday that it would allow children of same-sex couples to be baptized, a remarkable reversal of church policy from one of the religious groups that had long sought to be a bulwark against gay rights.

The decision, delivered by President Dallin H. Oaks, stops short of ending the church’s teaching that acting on same-sex attraction is sinful.

“While we cannot change the Lord’s doctrine, we want our members and our policies to be considerate of those struggling with the challenges of mortality,” the First Presidency, the church’s highest governing body, said Thursday.

The decision came nearly eight months after the church’s newest president, Russell M. Nelson said he had received a revelation that the church should no longer be referred to as Mormon, but by its full name. Many observers saw it as a sign that the church aimed to align itself with mainstream American Christianity.

While LGBT advocacy groups, like the Human Rights Campaign, cautiously welcomed the news, they also noted it was only a first step.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Thursday that it would allow children of same-sex couples to be baptized, a reversal of church policy from one of the religious groups that had long sought to be a bulwark against gay rights.

The decision rolls back a 2015 rule that had ripped apart congregations by declaring that church members in same-sex marriages were apostates and subject to excommunication, and that children of same-sex couples were banned from rituals like baptisms and baby-naming ceremonies.

Now, three years after the church drove many members away, the change signals an effort to draw them back and represents a broader effort by the church’s newest president to bring the church closer to mainstream American views.

“While we still consider such a marriage to be a serious transgression, it will not be treated as apostasy for purposes of Church discipline,” the First Presidency, which is the church’s highest governing body, said in a statement Thursday. “Instead, the immoral conduct in heterosexual or homosexual relationships will be treated in the same way.”

The decision, delivered by President Dallin H. Oaks, who is a member of the First Presidency, stops short of totally reversing the church’s policy that acting on same-sex attraction is sinful. It comes as the church, which has long been known as the Mormon Church, prepares for its general conference for all members this coming weekend.

“While we cannot change the Lord’s doctrine, we want our members and our policies to be considerate of those struggling with the challenges of mortality,” the statement said. “We want to reduce the hate and contention so common today.”

Emotions among Latter-day Saints across the country were raw as the news broke. In Charlottesville, Virginia, Meredith Marshall Nelson was at her son’s violin lesson when her brother texted her the news. She began to cry in relief, and recalled how the weekend that the 2015 policy was announced was the first time in her life that she did not want to go to church.

“It felt so incongruous with the teachings of Jesus,” said Marshall Nelson, 33, who is the editor of the Mormon Women Project. “He said, ‘Let the children come unto me, and forbid them not.’”

In Rexburg, Idaho, Kristine Anderson said she and her friends were overwhelmed as the news spread. “Everyone’s freaking out,” she said. “There is anger, frustration, happiness, all of it mixed.”

Churches across the Christian tradition have long wrestled with their own policies about the religious rights of LGBT people, and the tension has grown in recent months. The United Methodist Church voted in February to strengthen its ban against gay and lesbian clergy and same-sex marriage, a decision poised to split the denomination. Roman Catholics have debated the role of homosexuality in the clergy sexual abuse scandal, ostracizing gay priests.

In Springville, Utah, Alma Loveland stopped going to church around the time that the initial policy was announced. “In the ex-Mormon world, it is always a mix of happy and angry any time the church does anything that is positive,” she said. “It is always mixed with, OK, but you caused this problem in the first place.”

It is too early to tell whether or not this reversal may be enough to assuage church members who were angered and hurt by the 2015 decision, or enough to draw back those who have left the faith altogether. But it is another sign that the church under the leadership of its newest president, Russell M. Nelson, who was elected last year, is reconsidering its relationship with the broader American culture.

The decision comes nearly six months after Nelson said he had received a revelation that the church should no longer be referred to as “Mormon,” but by its full name. Many observers saw it as a sign that the church aimed to align itself with mainstream American Christianity and not be sidelined as a marginal group.

“On the one hand, the church is trying to figure out how to keep its younger members and how to be a large church in the 21st century,” said Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, an assistant professor of history at Montana State University, who studies the church and is not a member. “But in other ways, it is also trying to retain its distinct identity.”

Mormon Church to Allow Children of LGBT Parents to Be Baptized

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Thursday that it would allow children of same-sex couples to be baptized, a remarkable reversal of church policy from one of the religious groups that has long been a bulwark against gay rights.

The decision rolls back a 2015 rule that had ripped apart congregations by declaring church members in same-sex marriages were apostates and subject to excommunication, and that children of same-sex couples were banned from rituals like baptisms and baby-naming ceremonies.

The decision stops short of totally reversing the church’s policy that acting on same-sex attraction is sinful. It comes as the church, which has long been known as the Mormon Church, prepares for its general conference for all members this coming weekend.

Emotions among Latter-day Saints across the country were raw as the news broke. In Charlottesville, Virginia, Meredith Marshall Nelson was at her son’s violin lesson when her brother texted her the news. She began to cry in relief, and recalled how the weekend the 2015 policy was announced was the first time in her life she did not want to go to church.

“It felt so incongruous with the teachings of Jesus,” said Marshall Nelson, 33, who is the editor of the Mormon Women Project.

The decision comes nearly six months after Nelson said he had received a revelation that the church should no longer be referred to as “Mormon,” but by its full name. Many observers saw it as a sign the church aimed to align itself with mainstream American Christianity and not be sidelined as a marginal group.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Thursday it would allow children of same-sex couples to be baptized, a reversal of church policy from one of the religious groups that has long been a bulwark against gay rights.

The decision rolls back a 2015 policy that barred children living with same-sex couples from important religious practices like baby-naming ceremonies and baptisms. That policy also declared that church members in same-sex marriages were apostates and subject to excommunication.

“Effective immediately, children of parents who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender may be baptized without First Presidency approval,” the church’s First Presidency said in a statement Thursday.

The decision, instructed by President Dallin H. Oaks, who leads the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, comes as the church prepares for its general conference this coming weekend.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced a remarkable reversal to its policies on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people Thursday.

The appointment, which is not official until announced by the Vatican, comes after the archdiocese of Washington has been without an official leader for nearly six months. The Apostolic Nunciature, the Holy See’s embassy in Washington which facilitates the appointments of bishops, did not respond to a request for comment.

Gregory, 71, would be the first African American bishop to lead the archdiocese, a position that puts him in line to become the country’s first African American cardinal. He has led the archdiocese of Atlanta since 2005.

The appointment would replace one of Francis’ closest allies in the American church.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who became archbishop of Washington in 2006, resigned in October after he was named in a Pennsylvania grand jury report that accused church officials of covering up sexual abuse.

Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and the archbishop of Washington before Wuerl, was defrocked in February after church officials found him guilty of sexually abusing minors and adult seminarians over decades. It was the first time an American cardinal had been removed from the priesthood.

The archdiocese of Washington is a historically significant posting. It covers the nation’s capital, the Catholic University of America, and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Catholic church in North America.

Wuerl said when he resigned that he was “stepping aside to allow for new leadership that doesn’t have this baggage.”

His resignation divided the Washington region and frustrated many victims’ advocates who saw it as an insufficient consequence for his actions. Although Francis accepted his resignation, the pontiff defended him as a model bishop and named him the caretaker of the archdiocese until a successor was named. Wuerl continues to serve on powerful Vatican offices, including one that advises the pope on bishop appointments.

Gregory was president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002, when sexual abuse scandals erupted in Boston. He pushed to pass the Dallas Charter, which instituted a zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse of minors.

“From this day forward,” said Gregory, who was then the bishop of Belleville, Illinois, “no one known to have sexually abused a child will work in the Catholic Church in the United States. We bishops apologize to anyone harmed by one of our priests, and for our tragically slow response in recognizing the horror of sexual abuse.”

At a time of gentrification in Washington and racial tensions nationwide, the appointment is especially significant for the region’s African American Catholic community. The appointment is expected to come exactly 51 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

In Atlanta, Gregory has been known for his closeness to Francis’ vision. He commissioned an innovative plan after the pontiff’s signature encyclical on the environment in 2015, with practical steps for Catholics to protect the environment at church and at home. He has called on Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who are in the country illegally. The diocese has grown to 1.2 million Catholics under his leadership.

Last fall, Gregory invited the Rev. James Martin, a prominent Jesuit priest, to Atlanta to speak on welcoming LGBT Catholics, a decision that angered many conservative activists. In an interview, Martin called him “one of the most compassionate and open-minded bishops” when it came to supporting LGBT Catholics, their families and parishes.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/wilton-gregory-archbishop-washington.html" id="5edcfb17-e29a-382f-a7b7-636fd298f4dd">The New York Times</a>.

WASHINGTON — Pope Francis is expected to name Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta as the new Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington on Thursday, according to two people familiar with the selection process. The move would turn the page on a tumultuous period for a pivotal diocese whose recent leaders have been at the center of the church’s sexual abuse crisis in the United States.

Pope Expected to Name First African American as Archbishop of Washington

The civil suit also alleges that the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and Bishop Michael J. Bransfield, who was recently restricted from ministry, “failed to conduct adequate background checks” for employees of Catholic camps and schools, and that they did not disclose “the inherent danger to parents who purchased its services for their children.”

The lawsuit claims that the diocese and the bishop violated the state’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act, an unusual approach in pursuing the Catholic Church over sexual abuse and misconduct. Criminal prosecutions of individual abuse cases have often been hampered by statutes of limitation, but the West Virginia lawsuit is a civil action and is directed at the church’s handling of the problem. At least 16 attorneys general have started investigations into the Catholic Church since last summer.

Pope Francis accepted Bransfield’s resignation in September and local church officials opened their own investigation into allegations that he had sexually harassed adults. Earlier this month, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, who has been overseeing the church in West Virginia since Bransfield’s resignation, announced that the preliminary investigation had been completed. He said that Bransfield would be restricted from ministry in West Virginia and the archdiocese of Baltimore, pending a final judgment by the Vatican.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey began his investigation in September and now is also seeking a permanent court order to block the church from continuing such conduct.

“Parents who pay and entrust the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese and its schools to educate and care for their children deserve full transparency,” he said in a statement. “Our investigation reveals a serious need for the diocese to enact policy changes that will better protect children, just as this lawsuit demonstrates our resolve to pursue every avenue to effectuate change as no one is above the law.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/us/west-virginia-pedophiles-church.html" id="8b093537-ca3b-3c07-a4d0-d000d9d0c97d">The New York Times</a>.

The West Virginia attorney general filed a lawsuit against a retired top bishop and the state’s only Catholic diocese Tuesday, saying that they “knowingly employed pedophiles.”

West Virginia Sues Bishop and Diocese, Saying They Knowingly Employed Pedophiles

Pope Francis accepted Bransfield’s resignation in September and local church officials opened their own investigation into allegations that he had sexually harassed adults. Earlier this month, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, who has been overseeing the church in West Virginia since Bishop Bransfield’s resignation, announced that the preliminary investigation had been completed. He said that Bransfield would be restricted from ministry in West Virginia and the archdiocese of Baltimore, pending a final judgment by the Vatican.

But at least four ballots were cast by individuals who were not authorized to vote, according to interviews and a review of the church’s records. The individuals were from African delegations whose votes were critical to restricting the church’s rules on homosexuality.

The final 54-vote margin against gay clergy and same-sex marriage exceeds the number of unauthorized votes discovered so far. But the voting irregularities raised questions about the process behind the divisive decision, which devastated progressive members. Some have discussed leaving the denomination and possibly creating a new alliance for gay-friendly churches.

Church leaders are now discussing whether new votes should be called, Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton, who serves on the commission on the general conference, said in a phone interview.

“The findings that have come out have caused a serious impact on issues of trust and integrity about the whole process,” he said.

A query by The New York Times last week prompted church officials to hire a consulting firm to examine whether people who were ineligible may have received credentials to vote at the church’s general conference.

Church leaders who oversaw the conference said in a statement that the audit showed it was “possible that a very limited number of ineligible persons” participated. These people were denied credentials by staff at the conference, the officials said, but were later able to procure them.

The Times found additional irregularities. For example, two delegates from South Congo, which is a state in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are listed on the official attendance records. But they never traveled to the United States for the conference because of visa issues, according to a phone interview with one and a message sent by the other to the Rev. Kalaba Chali, an official translator for the conference. In addition, three people voted as delegates for South Congo but their names are absent from conference attendance logs and delegate election records.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/us/united-methodist-vote.html" id="eb89230b-ee65-3e5c-ae09-991c4204e47b">The New York Times</a>.

It was a momentous vote for the United Methodist Church, as the future of the country’s second-largest Protestant church hung in the balance. In a former football stadium in St. Louis last month, church officials and lay leaders from around the world voted to strengthen their ban on same-sex marriage and gay clergy, a decision that could now split the church.

Improper Voting Occurred at Methodist Conference That Strengthened Ban on Gay Clergy

One unauthorized delegate was Philippe Kasap Kachez, whose father is Bishop Kasap Owan, a prominent opponent of gay clergy. Three Methodists from the Congo region identified him to The Times as a voter seated on the floor. Chali spoke with him in St. Louis and asked why he was present.

“He said he did not go to a Methodist church in Congo, instead he lives in Brussels,” Chali said in a phone interview. “He said, ‘I came here because my dad asked me to come vote against the lesbians.’”

When contacted on Facebook and WhatsApp, Kasap Kachez declined to comment. Owan did not respond to questions.

“To learn that there were irregularities in the voting is distressing and of great concern,” Bishop Kenneth Carter, the president of the Council of Bishops, said Thursday.

When asked what these findings meant for the result of the vote of the general conference, the Rev. Gary W. Graves, secretary of the conference, said, “That is a matter that would still be under review.”

Then four years ago, he discovered Foundry United Methodist, a church that has carved a different path. He could sing the hymns of his childhood, be fully supported as a gay man, and finally become a candidate for ordination.

This week, a decision at a global conference for Methodists threatened to upend a lifetime of dreams, with the church voting to strengthen its ban on same-sex marriage and gay and lesbian clergy.

At an impromptu prayer service Wednesday, as Jechura helped serve communion, he broke out in sobs, his body convulsing, barely able to stand. The emptiness grew louder with every wail. Friends held him up, wrapping him in their arms.

For several minutes, they stood there as he wept at the altar, draped in a rainbow stole.

Across the country, progressive United Methodists are reeling from Tuesday night’s vote. As their conservative brethren celebrate, churches like Foundry are faced with difficult decisions.

Next month, they may learn if they will be able to keep their property and assets, and if their gay and lesbian colleagues will be tossed out. Pastors and lay people are already debating if they should start a new denomination — or if, in a move perhaps more threatening to those who voted them out, they should refuse to leave.

Nationwide, these high stakes are playing out in the blur of grief. The day after the vote, Foundry felt like it was in mourning. An assistant pastor made almost 50 calls to counsel and comfort parishioners. Neighbors from the Jewish Community Center came by with a box of tarts for the office, remembering how the pastors had brought them ice cream the day of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

“I was numb,” said the Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli, Foundry’s pastor, her voice raw as she described the moments after the vote.

Yet in the swirl of confusion, Foundry is also resolute. A schism may be on the horizon, but it has not happened yet, leaders point out. The new rules do not go into effect until January, and the Methodist judiciary must decide if parts of the new rule are constitutional.

Shortly after the vote, Gaines-Cirelli joined a conference call with like-minded church leaders to start to plan their next steps. “We are not going anywhere,” she said in an interview. “If someone wants to come for me, for us, then bring it.”

For decades, the stone church on 16th Street, a few blocks north of the White House, has been one of the most prominent religious institutions in Washington. The Clinton family called it home for years. It has also made religious rights for LGBT people core to its ministry. Foundry’s pastors have married same-sex couples and hired gay clergy. One retired minister surrendered his credentials in protest when a lesbian member’s ordination was blocked.

Foundry was one of the first large churches to join a Methodist network that supports LGBT people, 30 years ago. Today, the church has more than 1,000 members, with most of its new growth coming from young people.

Foundry may be at the vanguard, but it is among hundreds of Methodist churches that have believed that one day, their religious views about sexuality would prevail. Nearly two-thirds of American Methodists say homosexuality should be accepted. And United Methodist bishops had supported a plan at the conference that would have embraced LGBT clergy.

For months, Foundry prepared for the looming vote. Last summer, the church dedicated a special altar in the narthex for people to pray. Progressive Methodist coalitions from around the country met at Foundry to organize in the fall.

At the conference, on the floor of a former football stadium in St. Louis, Gaines-Cirelli juggled seven WhatsApp chat groups to coordinate strategy with advocates. Above in the stands, more than 35 Foundry members stood each day, singing hymns and holding strands of Tibetan-style, handmade rainbow prayer flags.

But conservatives in the United States and Africa were equally fervent, arguing that a change in the teaching would oppose historical church teaching. They had spent decades preparing for this moment, and many of the conservative churches were far larger, and with far more financial means.

“The debate cannot continue forever,” one of the main conservative groups, the Wesleyan Covenant Association, said in a statement after the vote. “We recognize irreconcilable differences exist.”

After the vote, one of Foundry’s assistant pastors, the Rev. Will Ed Green, 31, slept for just an hour and half. He remembered being 6 in Hope, Arkansas, when he had watched his pastor break the bread for communion, and had told his mother, “I want to feed people like that.” But he was outed when he sought ordination, so he moved to Illinois, where bishops were more willing to receive queer candidates. Later, he was hired by Foundry.

“You have people for whom the Methodist Church has become everything,” Green said. They say, “this church saved my life,” he said, “this church is where I found Jesus.”

At the prayer service on Wednesday, as worshippers walked in from the night, Jechura urged them, “Be not afraid.” Together they read Scripture: The Lord will deliver you from the snare of the fowler. At the front of the sanctuary hung a tall orange banner that read, “Sacred Resistance.”

April Young, 34, a lifelong United Methodist from a more conservative congregation in Texas, joined Foundry just two weeks ago. She twisted the ring on her finger as she sat in her pew, struggling to describe why she came to pray. “I just thought, if there is anything I can do, listen, anything ... " Her voice trailed off. “My church is really hurting.”

Across the aisle sat Lenny Wrigley, 30, who grew up as a United Methodist but now goes to a Baptist church in Virginia. He will soon go to seminary to become a military chaplain, but has decided not to pursue Methodist ordination because he is openly gay. “This is not a time to be excluding people,” he said. “This church is seeing a decline.”

Despite the risk, Jechura remains committed. In two years, he will graduate from seminary. “I am not going to allow the church to stand in the way of God’s call on my life,” he said. “I can do nothing else.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/us/united-methodist-church-gay-clergy-ban.html" id="3348ff7b-409b-3f94-a24f-96ad686e0bd7">The New York Times</a>.

'We Are Not Going Anywhere': Progressive Methodists Vow to Fight Ban on Gay Clergy

WASHINGTON — Chet Jechura was 12 years old when he first felt called to preach, but for years he put off ordination. He knew himself, and he knew the official rules of the United Methodist Church: Homosexuality was “incompatible with Christian teaching.” And so he left the denomination.

Each chose to be scorched or paralyzed. Not one uttered the word “gay.” They called the game the Game of Life.

The lesson stuck. Seven years later, he climbed up into his seminary dorm window and dangled one leg over the edge. “I really am gay,” Greiten, now a priest near Milwaukee, remembered telling himself for the first time. “It was like a death sentence.”

The closet of the Roman Catholic Church hinges on an impossible contradiction. For years, church leaders have driven gay congregants away in shame and insisted that “homosexual tendencies” are “disordered.” And yet, thousands of the church’s priests are gay.

The stories of gay priests are unspoken, veiled from the outside world, known only to one another, if they are known at all.

Fewer than about 10 priests in the United States have dared to come out publicly. But gay men likely make up at least 30 to 40 percent of the American Catholic clergy, according to dozens of estimates from gay priests themselves and researchers. Some priests say the number is closer to 75 percent.

Two dozen gay priests and seminarians from 13 states shared intimate details of their lives in the Catholic closet with The New York Times over the past two months.

Almost all of them required strict confidentiality to speak without fear of retribution from their bishops or superiors. A few had been expressly forbidden to come out or even to speak about homosexuality. Most are in active ministry, and could lose more than their jobs if they are outed. The church almost always controls a priest’s housing, health insurance and retirement pension. He could lose all three if his bishop finds his sexuality disqualifying, even if he is faithful to his vows of celibacy.

The environment for gay priests has grown only more dangerous. The fall of Theodore McCarrick, the once-powerful cardinal who was defrocked last week for sexual abuse of boys and young men, has inflamed accusations that homosexuality is to blame for the church’s resurgent abuse crisis.

Studies repeatedly find there to be no connection between being gay and abusing children. And yet prominent bishops have singled out gay priests as the root of the problem, and right-wing media organizations attack what they have called the church’s “homosexual subculture,” “lavender mafia,” or “gay cabal.”

Even Pope Francis has grown more critical in recent months. He has called homosexuality “fashionable,” recommended that men with “this deep-seated tendency” not be accepted for ministry, and admonished gay priests to be “perfectly responsible, trying to never create scandal.”

This week, Francis will host a much-anticipated summit on sex abuse with bishops from around the world. The debate promises to be not only about holding bishops accountable but also about homosexuality itself.

When Francis uttered his revolutionary question, “Who am I to judge?” in 2013, he tempted the closet door to swing open. A cautious few priests stepped through.

But if the closet door cracked, the sex abuse crisis now threatens to slam it shut. Widespread scapegoating has driven many priests deeper into the closet.

“The vast majority of gay priests are not safe,” said Father Bob Bussen, a priest in Park City, Utah, who was outed about 12 years ago after he held Mass for the LGBTQ community.

“Life in the closet is worse than scapegoating,” he said. “It is not a closet. It is a cage.”

Even before a priest may know he is gay, he knows the closet. The code is taught early, often in seminary. Numquam duo, semper tres, the warning goes. Never two, always three. Move in trios, never as a couple. No going on walks alone together, no going to the movies in a pair. The higher-ups warned for years: Any male friendship is too dangerous, could slide into something sexual, and turn into what they called a “particular friendship.”

Today, training for the priesthood in the United States usually starts in or after college. But until about 1980, the church often recruited boys to start in ninth grade — teenagers still in the throes of puberty. For many of today’s priests and bishops over 50, this environment limited healthy sexual development. Priests cannot marry, so sexuality from the start was about abstinence, and obedience.

Priests in America tend to come out to themselves at a much later age than the national average for gay men, 15. Many gay priests spoke of being pulled between denial and confusion, finally coming out to themselves in their 30s or 40s.

Greiten was 24 when he realized he was gay and considered jumping from his dorm window. He did not jump, but confided his despair in a classmate. His friend came out himself. It was a revelation: There were other people studying to be priests who were gay. It was just that no one talked about it.

He reached out to a former seminary professor who he thought might also be a gay man.

“There will be a time in your life when you will look back on this and you’re going to just love yourself for being gay,” Greiten remembered this man telling him. “I thought, ‘This man must be totally insane.'”

But he had discovered the strange irony of the Catholic closet — it isn’t secret at all.

“It’s kind of like an open closet,” Greiten said. “It’s the making of it public, and speaking about it, where it becomes an issue.”

Just over a year ago, after meeting with a group of gay priests, Greiten decided it was time to end his silence. At Sunday Mass, during Advent, he told his suburban parish he was gay, and celibate. They leapt to their feet in applause.

His story went viral. A 90-year-old priest called him to say he had lived his entire life in the closet and longed for the future to be different.

To some church leaders, that outpouring of support may have been even more threatening than his sexuality. Greiten had committed the cardinal sin: He opened the door to debate. His archbishop, Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee, issued a statement saying that he wished Greiten had not gone public. Letters poured in calling him “satanic,” “gay filth,” and a “monster” who sodomized children.

Blaming gay men for sexual abuse is almost sure to be a major topic this week at the Vatican.

“Instead of seeing increased accountability on the parts of the bishops, it could become once again a condemnation of lesbian, gay, transsexual people within the church,” John Coe, 63, a permanent deacon in Kentucky, who came out last year, said about the summit.

Greiten wished he could talk to Francis himself. “Listen to my story of how the church traumatized me for being a gay man,” he asked, into the air.

“It’s not just about the sexual abuse crisis,” he said, his voice growing urgent. “They are sexually traumatizing and wounding yet another generation. We have to stand up and say no more sexual abuse, no more sexual traumatizing, no more sexual wounding. We have to get it right when it comes to sexuality.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/us/it-is-not-a-closet-it-is-a-cage-gay-catholic-priests-speak-out.html" id="a2ea417b-3b5e-321b-a9a7-6144bfd67989">The New York Times</a>.

MILWAUKEE — Gregory Greiten was 17 years old when the priests organized the game. It was 1982 and he was on a retreat with his classmates from St. Lawrence, a Roman Catholic seminary for teenage boys training to become priests. Leaders asked each boy to rank which he would rather be: burned over 90 percent of his body, paraplegic, or gay.

'It Is Not a Closet. It Is a Cage.' Gay Catholic Priests Speak Out

Instead, they should use the church’s full name and refer to themselves as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Or, if they wanted a shorter version, Latter-day Saints was preferred. As he is revered as a living prophet, the announcement had divine weight.

For the church’s 16 million adherents, the shift has meant lighthearted screw-ups, logistical complications and reflections on an unexpected question: What do you do when a name that has been core to your identity suddenly changes?

The word Mormon has been with the church from the beginning. It comes from the Book of Mormon, the church’s signature text, which adherents believe was recorded on gold plates by the prophet Mormon and his son, Moroni.

The church has tried to stress its full name at various points in the past, and has discouraged phrases like “the Mormon Church.” But until Nelson’s announcement of the divine revelation, the push hadn’t stuck.

The church’s longtime website, LDS.org, now redirects to ChurchofJesusChrist.org, and Mormon.org will soon switch over, too.

The shift became impossible to ignore when the church’s iconic musical organization announced in October that it would no longer be known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.

Some members have felt relief and a new optimism about broader inclusion in American society. The move signals a top-down effort to ensure the faith is taken seriously as part of the Christian community, said Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, an assistant professor of history at Montana State University, who studies the church and is not a member.

Leaders at the Mormon History Association, whose members study the full spectrum of traditions connected to Joseph Smith — who published the Book of Mormon in 1830 — took just five minutes to decide to keep their name at a recent board meeting.

“You can’t scrub ‘Mormon’ out of Mormon history,” said W. Paul Reeves, the group’s president.

'Mormon' no more faithful reflect on church's move to scrap a moniker

In August, leaders of the Mormon faith announced a game-changing divine revelation. Russell M. Nelson, the church’s president, said God had “impressed upon my mind the importance of the name he has revealed for his church.” Church members should no longer call themselves Mormons, or even use the shorthand LDS, the church announced.

'Mormon' no more: faithful reflect on church's move to scrap a moniker

Thousands of pastors voted late Tuesday afternoon to address the problem in a concerted way for the first time, enacting two new measures they say are a first step to reform. Outside the arena where they were gathered, victims and their families protested what they considered an inadequate response.

The pastors voted to create a centralized committee that would evaluate allegations against churches accused of mishandling abuse. They also approved an amendment to their constitution that would allow such churches to be expelled from the convention if the allegations were substantiated.

“Protecting God’s children is the mission of the church,” the denomination’s president, J.D. Greear, said Tuesday morning as he addressed the gathering. “We have to deal with this definitively and decisively.”

But victims’ advocates argued there was still widespread cultural resistance in the evangelical community to dealing with abuse. For years the Southern Baptist Convention has refrained from suggested reforms, like establishing a database of abusers, and has had no explicit procedures or enforcement mechanisms to address the problem of sexual abuse and its cover-up.

“The heart shift is what we really need to see,” said Rachael Denhollander, who is on the denomination’s sex abuse study group. “There has also been a significant effort by some factions of the SBC to undermine even some of the good things that are already underway.”

Earlier this year, Greear called for 10 churches to be investigated for how they handled abuse allegations. Southern Baptist officials cleared seven of them within days. Either these officials were ignorant or they were intentionally undermining efforts for reform, Denhollander said.

On Monday, The New York Times published an article about how the Village Church, one of the most prominent evangelical megachurches in the country, handled a sexual abuse allegation against an associate children’s minister, Matthew Tonne. Christi Bragg, a longtime member, said that after telling church leaders that her daughter had been molested by the minister, the Village failed to provide her family with sufficient answers and support, and the family has since left the church.

The church said in a statement Tuesday that it was “absolutely grieved by this report, first and foremost because the Bragg family does not feel loved and supported by our church.”

“While we are imperfect as a church, the care, compassion and spiritual well-being of our members and guests is at the core of who we are and how we operate as a church body,” the Village said to members in an email.

The Village disputed the Times article’s characterization of how the Braggs were treated, saying for instance that Matt Chandler, the lead pastor, spoke with Bragg in September, at a group meeting with many other families.

On Tuesday, Bragg said that was “simply not true,” and that the family had never met personally with Chandler since her daughter’s disclosure. Bragg said another top pastor explained to her the night of the group meeting that Chandler would not talk with her then because he did not want to draw attention to them.

Chandler interrupted his sabbatical to unexpectedly join the annual meeting Tuesday.

At a panel, he said he was in “introspective mode” about what he could have done differently.

He said that he was not “running point on care” for the Braggs and allowed other pastors to handle their care because “they are 25 minutes away” and didn’t attend the campus where he was based. Bragg’s daughter was allegedly molested when the family attended Chandler’s campus.

At one point, Chandler teared up when he spoke about his memories of his daughter talking with Tonne before her baptism. “He was a beloved man,” Chandler said.

Chandler is in the inner circle of top Southern Baptist pastors across the country, and has strong relationships with many top Southern Baptist leaders, especially new and younger leaders. He is the president of Acts 29, a global association of hundreds of evangelical churches whose goal is to spread their faith and church model worldwide.

“We believed that having this conversation publicly and immediately would help Southern Baptists learn, whether positively or negatively, how to better handle these issues in our churches,” said Jedidiah Coppenger, a leader of Baptist21, the group that hosted the event.

Russell Moore, who leads the denomination’s public policy arm, said that while he sees progress, the challenges are also significant. “Sometimes Elijah sees a cloud the size of a person’s hand on the horizon and that is what you need to press forward,” he said.

Greear urged pastors to put aside their reputations and focus on doing what was right. “You’ve got to make this a priority,” he said. “The credibility of what we actually believe about the gospel is at stake.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/us/southern-baptist-convention-sex-abuse.html" id="756981b1-c54d-3a9d-ad9e-d480f416db9a">The New York Times</a>.

Southern Baptist Convention vows to address sex abuse in its churches

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, opened their annual meeting this week vowing to focus on an issue that many pastors have long resisted: how to address sexual abuse at their churches.

Since last fall, more than 150 measles cases have been recorded in Rockland County, a New York suburb home to a large ultra-Orthodox Jewish community where there has been some resistance to vaccinations.

The vast majority of states allow families to opt out of getting vaccinated if they object on religious grounds. Parents seem to take advantage of these rules: Researchers have found that broad philosophical and religious exemptions to vaccine requirements are associated with higher rates of unvaccinated children.

But this year’s outbreaks are now raising public health questions about why states allow such exemptions. Here is how religious exemptions work:

What is a religious exemption to a vaccine, and which states have them?

Religious exemptions allow parents to opt their children out of mandated vaccination policies if they object to the vaccine for religious reasons, and if they follow the state’s opt-out process. Almost every state, plus Washington, D.C., allows for a religious exemption beginning at least in kindergarten. Four states do not: California, West Virginia, Mississippi and Arizona.

Each state has its own rules regarding vaccinations for children who attend public schools. In addition to the religious exemption, all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., allow exceptions for medical reasons. Examples include a child who has a condition like cancer or an immune disorder where a vaccine could be harmful to the child’s health.

And more than a dozen states offer philosophical exemptions, sometimes known as personal-belief exemptions, which don’t require that a parent’s desire to opt out be specifically about their religious beliefs. Instead, they can include exemptions for conscience or moral ideology.

California, West Virginia and Mississippi, which do not allow religious exemptions, also do not allow philosophical objections.

How are religious exemptions connected to the recent measles outbreak?

Elizabeth Dias

Articles written by the author

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